Follow the steps in this article to easily import customers, projects, hours and/or employees! Piece of cake.
Table of contents
Find the import option
It is very easy to import customers, projects, hours and/or employees. Just follow the steps below and you'll be through it in no time. Where can the import function be found? You can find import in the general settings (accessible via the gear icon next to your username) in the main menu. Then click on the 'Import' item at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar. Below, you can read in 5 steps how to easily import all your data!
The step-by-step plan
Step 1 In Excel, create a list for the desired import, e.g. customers. You may use column names, but this is not mandatory. Adding column names makes it easier to process your file. When done, choose 'Save as' (or 'Save as') and then 'Comma Separated Values (.csv)'. Note: In TimeChimp, there is a limit of 500 lines. Do you have more than 500 lines? Then create multiple files with a maximum of 500 lines each. After the steps, you will find some sample import files, so you can get a clear idea of how to create it.
Step 2 Upload this file in the CSV import wizard. Then choose what you want to import and click 'Start upload'.
Step 3 Link the desired columns from your file to the fields you want to fill. If you choose a date column, specify the format of the date. Hours should not exceed 24 hours and should be in the following format: 88.58, 58:30.
Step 4 After choosing all the columns, press 'Start importing'. Your CSV file will be imported.
Step 5 You will receive feedback about the status of your import. If the import was successful, you get a success message. If your file was not imported, you will receive a message explaining why the import was unsuccessful. You can then return to the previous screen to upload another file or choose other columns.
Note: make sure there are no empty lines in your CSV file. Having trouble figuring it out? Then contact support via the chat at the bottom right.
Examples Import files
Matching
During the import, data from your file (such as customers and/or projects) are linked to specific fields.
Important: When importing data, information is 'matched,' and this varies depending on what you are importing. Does this field already exist? Then the data, such as customers or projects, will be updated with the new information. If these fields do not yet exist in your current environment, these customers or projects will be created as new.
Capital letters are not taken into account when linking.
Customers: Customers are first linked based on customer number. If no customer number is available (for existing customers and customers from import), the customer is linked by name. If there is no match, a new customer is created.
Projects: Projects are first linked by project code. If no project code is available (for existing projects and projects from the import), the project is linked by name. If there is no match, a new project is created.
Hours: When importing hours, registration is linked to customer, project, activity and/or employee. When importing hours, a customer, employee and activity must always be present. Do the customer/activity or employee not yet exist? Then create them first.
Employees: Employees are linked on the basis of e-mail address. If the e-mail address is already known, the import is not possible. If the e-mail address does not yet exist, a new employee is created.
Good to know
There are also a few tricks that are good to know when you are importing data. Below is a list of these tricks:
When you import projects, all active employees and activities are added. Do all projects need to include all employees? In that case, it may be useful to import employees first. If this is not the case and not every employee needs to be in the projects you want to import, then it's better to import projects first and then employees.
If you want to add multiple tags to, for example, a user or customer, separate the different tags using a comma.
When importing employees, the new users will not receive an email to activate their account. Select the employee(s) > action > 'send invitation' to manually send an invitation to the users.